


I'm getting older too

by PeterParkers7EvilExes (antimone_ii)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Cults, Gaslighting (by the cult), Gun Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-10-11 17:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17451668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antimone_ii/pseuds/PeterParkers7EvilExes
Summary: A month into Bucky's incarceration, the detention center was audited and to no one’s surprise, it was deemed dangerously overcrowded. A lovely farm upstate had volunteered to take on a few juveniles, they said, and 50 of them were ordered onto a school bus that shuttled them five hours north. “This is a cult,” Sam realized as they were herded through the compound.or: The one where Bucky and Peter's meet cute happens in the middle of a violent cult riot.





	1. On Campbell's® Condensed Old Fashioned Vegetable Soup

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of the real life cult of Synanon, look ‘em up if you’re into weird cult shit, it’s horrifying.

He got caught trying to steal canned soup. With his baseball cap down low and a faded gray hoodie on, Bucky had thought it was safe. He smuggled two cans of Campbell’s vegetable soup into his hoodie pockets and strolled out the door. The cops were waiting for him beyond the corner, and he never made it back to the foster home where Rebecca was waiting for him.

Juvie was hell. It was an improvement in some ways - he got three hot meals a day, had a lumpy but warm bed, and the detention center even had a little library with some mangled books. But being separated from Rebecca, that was the worst feeling he’d ever experienced in his entire life. Even worse than finding out their parents were dead was the guilt of knowing that he’d _failed_ them, failed Rebecca, left her to fend for herself in a negligent foster home. He tossed and turned in his cot for the first few nights, plagued by thoughts of his little sister hating him, or worse, of her quiet resignation as yet another person failed to protect her like they’d promised.

He didn’t sleep until the third night, when his bunkmate Sam told him, “You ain’t helping her by killing yourself like this.” That and the complete exhaustion lulled Bucky into a dead slumber.

This, Bucky thought, was the worst feeling in the world.

Then a month into his incarceration, the detention center was audited and to no one’s surprise, it was deemed dangerously overcrowded. A lovely farm upstate had volunteered to take on a few juveniles, they said, and Bucky and Sam were ordered onto a school bus that shuttled 50 of them five hours north.

The detention center dropped them off in the middle of a farm, isolated for miles around, wiped their hands of those pesky delinquents, and drove back to the city. “This is a cult,” Sam realized as they were herded through the compound, and Bucky nodded in quiet agreement.

That night, the ‘community leader’, a lean man in his 40s with deceptively warm, brown eyes who introduced himself as Emrys, spread his arms and beamed at his sullen audience. “Your paths are laden with sin. I sense a great deal of violence in your pasts. But you’re home now. You’ll be expected to do your part for your new family, but in return, you’ll find meaning and purpose - a calling that you used to fill with drugs, violence and sex.” He smiled genially at them. “Things are already better for you, I promise.”  
  


* * *

  
Things didn’t get better. The cult, in between preachings of cleansing and forgiveness, emphasized breaking down the ego to rebuild anew. This mostly consisted of ‘group therapy’ where community members were gathered into a room and berated for each of their flaws and ugly histories. Bucky watched as the cult members screamed and called each other drug addicts, whores, junkies, shitty mothers and useless sons. At the end of each session, Emrys swooped in, touching a gentle palm to their foreheads and ‘built them back up’, murmuring about how his beloved children had an opportunity to repent, a second chance at life here. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” he said each time, and those inoculated would weep, clutching at Emrys’ jacket sleeves and thank him for believing in them.

As they worked in the gardens, Bucky and Sam exchanged what they saw. “We gotta get out of here,” Sam hissed, his eyes flicking from side to side for the supervisors. “This is straight up Jonestown in the making, you know how that ends, don’t you?”

Bucky bent over, pretending to pull out weeds. “There’s nothing for miles around, where would we even go?”

Sam shrugged, the line of his shoulders tensing as the supervisor strolled closer to their section of the garden. “There’s some talk in my bunk,” he continued in a low voice. “Remember Winston, the ginger from juvie?” Bucky nodded slowly. “He’s talking to others, saying they’re gonna try and make a break for it later this week, while everyone’s at community prayer.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” Bucky said immediately, glaring up at Sam from where he was hunched on the ground. “Doing it while everyone’s gathered in one place? _Everyone’s_ gonna know right away. Plus Winston’s a fucking moron, you really think he’s got a good plan going?”

Huffing out a sigh, Sam kicked at Bucky’s boot. “You got a better plan?”

Bucky pursed his lips and shook his head. “Don’t do it, Sam,” he said quietly. “I’m serious.”

Stretching his arms over his head, Sam looked up at the dusky sky. “I won’t,” he said slowly. “But we can’t stay here forever, Buck. This place is evil, and you know it too.”  
  


* * *

  
  
That Friday night, things got worse.

During community prayer, Bucky kept scanning the crowd for Winston and his crew, and of course he saw no sign of them. Standing at his podium at the front of the temple, Emrys spread his arms wide, his brown eyes glittering with some smug satisfaction as he preached about young lambs who needed to lose their way before they could be saved. As Emrys gazed over his followers, his dark, omniscient eyes landed briefly on Bucky, and a horrible chill shuddered down his spine.

But it wasn’t until after everyone went to bed that all hell broke loose.

Bucky was lying awake in his bunk, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Rebecca as usual when he heard distant shouting and the barking of dogs. He sat up in his bed, looking to the door of the cabin. “What’s that?” He asked quietly.

Two of his bunkmates were asleep, but another kid was awake as well. He shook his head at Bucky in confusion.

Stepping into his boots, Bucky got up and crept to the door. The yelling came closer, and among the voices he could hear higher voices - mostly teenagers’ screams. Dread sunk cold in his chest, and he looked back at his bunkmate. “I’m gonna see what’s going on.”

Outside, a scene of chaos was unfolding. The would-be runaways were being rounded up back to the compound, their clothes disheveled and muddied and, Bucky realized with a jolt of horror, gashed with blood. A pack of dogs herded them along, snarling and barking at the stragglers. Bucky recognized the community’s sentries hemming in the runaways on all sides, striking at them with bats and flashlights.

“Hey!” called a voice, and Bucky turned, seeing a scrawny brunet boy he vaguely recognized standing outside another cabin and watching. The boy’s call went unnoticed and a sentry struck one of the runaways across the forehead, sending him crumpling to the ground. “ _Stop it_!” cried the scrawny boy, and he ran into the fray.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky muttered under his breath, breaking into a run as he watched the sentries start on him as well. “Get off, he’s injured!” he shouted, throwing an arm up to shield his face. The scrawny boy ducked under Bucky’s arm and grabbed the unconscious kid under his armpits, starting to drag him away. “Stop, you’re killing them,” he roared as a bat landed hard on his back. Furious, he turned to his attacker and punched him in the face. He didn’t get the chance to do anything else - he heard the heavy _thunk_ of a bat before the pain registered, splitting agony down his skull. As Bucky’s vision swam and went fuzzy, all he could hear was the howling of dogs.  
  


* * *

  
  
_This_ was the worst feeling in the world.

Sharp, thudding pain pulsed behind Bucky’s eyeballs, and he briefly wished someone would knock him out again so he didn’t have to be awake anymore. “Fuck,” he muttered, and he heard a startled yelp to his right side.

“Oh thank god,” came Sam’s voice, and Bucky cracked his eyes open, wincing at the low lighting. To his surprise though, it wasn’t Sam leaning over him. At first, in his addled state, Bucky felt certain that he _had_ died, and this was an angel peering down at him.

Large brown eyes blinked owlishly at Bucky. It was the scrawny boy from earlier, his soft brown hair haloed in a golden corona from the lamplight. “You’re not Sam,” Bucky said intelligently, and the boy laughed.

“You’re alive,” the boy said with relief, smiling at him. He had a pretty smile, a nice laugh, Bucky noted dimly.

Sam came into view then, crossing his arms and looking down at Bucky quite unimpressed. “You would’ve died if Peter hadn’t saved your ass,” he informed him.

Bucky gingerly touched his skull. “I wouldn’t have had to save _your_ ass in the first place if you hadn’t run out there,” he complained, shooting a rueful look up at Peter.

Peter flushed pink. “They were killing him,” he said meekly.

His little frown made Bucky feel like he’d just kicked a puppy. “I’m just giving you shit,” he said gruffly, sitting up and looking around Sam’s and Peter’s cabin. “It was brave. But stupid.”

“You’re both brave and stupid,” Sam said firmly. “We barely dragged your lifeless body back in here, you know.”

“What happened?” Bucky asked, groaning as pain throbbed dully over his back and shoulders. “What happened to the other kids?”

Peter and Sam exchanged a look. “They got taken to isolation,” Peter said quietly. At Bucky’s questioning look, he grimaced. “You’re newer. You wouldn’t have heard of it. They don’t like people knowing about isolation until they’re… y’know.”

“Brainwashed,” Sam supplied helpfully.

“Yeah.” Peter lowered his eyes, picking up a damp washcloth and soaking it in a little basin. He lifted the rag and held it out, gently patting it across his forehead. Bucky blinked, seeing the rag come away pink with his blood. “They put addicts in there to force them clean. It’s awful.”

“Will they be okay?” Bucky asked, dread unfurling cold in his chest again.

Peter shrugged. “They’ll get out, but they won’t be the same. If you think what happens up here is brainwashing, the stuff that they do in isolation…” He shuddered, dipping the rag back into the basin. “You don’t get out _until_ you’re without a doubt converted.”

“Fuck. We gotta get out of here,” Bucky said, his breath coming in short now. “I gotta get back to the city.”

“Oh, now you agree with me?” Sam crossed his arms over his chest, unsympathetic.

Bucky flipped him off and to his surprise, Peter’s face broke into a wide grin. He was adorable. “I got to thinking,” he started, looking carefully at the door as if to check for eavesdroppers, “Winston’s plan was stupid.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said emphatically, flinching when another spike of pain shot through his head.

“Lie back,” Peter huffed, and he pressed his small hands down on Bucky’s chest, flattening him against the lumpy cot. Bucky let himself be tucked into bed, and he watched with some amusement and disbelief as this skinny, angelic boy bustled about the cabin, unperturbed by his delinquent company as he dumped out the dirty basin water and fetched a clean pillowcase. “Just running will never work. They’ve got hunting dogs and cars--”

“They’ve got _cars_?” Sam hissed in outrage. “They’ve been makin’ us haul feed two miles in the blazing sun, talking about work ethic and purity of the mind--”

“So we need to get out _with_ their approval,” Peter continued. “They have to willingly let us off campus, either as missionaries or running errands.”

“But that will only get us so far,” Bucky said, raising himself so Peter could tuck a fresh pillow under his head.

Peter’s face lit up in another smile. God, he was pretty. “We don’t have to make it all the way back to the city. We just need to make it out of their jurisdiction.”

“You’ve thought this all through,” Bucky realized. “Why wait until now? Why didn’t you do this before, before Winston and his crew? Security’s going to be way tighter now that there’s already been one escape attempt.”

Peter met his eyes, warm brown and wide with fear. “I was waiting for the right people,” he admitted. “I only get one chance at this. If I get caught, Dad’s gonna kill me. _Literally_ kill me.”

“Dad?” Sam repeated, squinting at him.

With a jolt, Bucky realized where he recognized those dark brown eyes - deceitful and dominating where he’d seen them before, but heartfelt and kind in Peter. “Oh shit,” he breathed.

Peter nodded, his face determined. “Any objections to breaking out with the cult leader’s kid?”

Sam and Bucky looked at one another, nodding their silent agreement. “Well Emrys Junior,” Sam said, clapping Peter on the shoulder. “Looks like you’re our best bet, so we don’t got much of a choice, do we?”

Peter wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Please, his name’s _Rick_. I wanna get out of this festering hellhole as bad as you two. You know he doesn’t let us watch movies? I just wanna watch _King Kong_.”

A laugh came unbidden from Bucky’s lips, startling him for a moment with how foreign it felt. He sat back up, ignoring Peter’s concerned face and grabbed the kid’s hand in his. “Peter, you get us out of here and I’ll take you to the movies every day,” he said seriously.

Flushing pink again, Peter looked down at their joined hands, then back up at Bucky. He nodded seriously, his eyes warm and earnest. “I will. We will,” he promised softly.

Things weren’t great. Bucky was still trapped in a cult hundreds of miles from his sister and he had a headache that felt like an axe was wedged between his ears, but this was hope.

This was better.


	2. On the 1993 GMC® Sierra Single-Cab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** guns, descriptions of physical violence and blood, descriptions of cult-like gaslighting

Group therapy was hell.

All it had taken was one crazed man grasping for straws, and before long everyone knew Bucky’s life. ‘ _Negligent, selfish, violent_ ’, they chanted. ‘ _Abandoned your sister, lost your way, purposeless and useless_ ’. It wasn’t a unique treatment. Everyone got ‘broken down’ like this, everyone was debased and humiliated in front of the whole room. It was supposed to be part of the healing process, Emrys insisted. Only by breaking one down to his core vulnerabilities could he be rebuilt. “Today,” he said, cupping Bucky’s face in his withered old hands, “is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Gazing up at Emrys through blurred tears, Bucky ground his teeth hatefully and wished him death. It was _hard_ to not let their words get to him, and there was only so much violent brainwashing he could withstand.

Having Sam and Peter around helped - to a degree. Peter had been able to pull some strings and get Bucky moved to their cabin, and just having a safe place away from the pervasive cult mentality was a relief. But the group therapy sessions didn't seem to hit the other two nearly as hard.

"Just let it roll off you man," Sam said, not unkindly. "Water off a duck's back."

"They don't actually know you," Peter added. "Nothing they spout in there is true. You're stronger than them, Bucky."

And yet, Bucky only felt weak and broken after group therapy. Rebecca had always been the stronger of the two of them and he felt certain that his little sister, all four feet nine inches of her, would have laughed in everyone’s faces and let their words bounce off her like so much wasted breath.

On one night after a particularly rough group therapy session, Bucky had laid sullen in his bunk, useless tears slipping down his cheeks as he thought of Rebecca and how badly he’d failed her.

He wasn’t expecting it then, when a soft voice broke the silence. “We’ll get out of here.”

“What?” he said, hating how his voice came out a little nasally, betraying his weakness.

“This isn’t forever.” Peter’s head popped down from the bunk above, his brown hair flopping messily around his face as he gazed at Bucky upside-down. “This place is designed to break you. But we’re gonna get out of here.”

“I know,” Bucky said automatically, wiping the wetness from his eyes and sitting up in bed.

Peter stared at him for a long moment, cocking his head to one side. He nodded to himself and, with a little ‘ _oof_!’, swung down from the top bunk and fell gracelessly into Bucky’s lap, long legs smacking him in the face. “Scoot,” he whispered, thankfully blind to the way Bucky was suddenly flushed bright red at their positions.

Bucky pressed himself against the wall, staring quizzically as Peter laid down next to him, his body a line of warmth against his side.

“Hi,” Peter said, tucking his toes under Bucky’s calves and giggling when the older boy tried to squirm away. “What’re you gonna do when we get out of here?” He asked conversationally, keeping his voice down as to not disturb Sam who was snoring gently in the other bunk.

“Oh, I dunno.” Bucky murmured, throwing half of the blanket over Peter’s legs. When Peter just nudged his shoulder patiently, Bucky sighed. “I’m gonna find my sister. I’m getting her out of the foster home and we’re gonna take care of ourselves.”

“That sounds nice.” Peter curled into a little ball on his side, dark eyes blinking at Bucky. “You’re a good brother.”

Bucky shrugged, staring at the underside of the top bunk. He didn’t feel like he was. “How about you? Did you ever live… not here?”

Peter nodded, his fingers tracing an unidentifiable pattern on the sheets between them. “With my aunt and uncle. They were good people, took me in after Dad split. But they died a few years ago, so I got sent here to live with him anyways.”

“You don’t seem anything like him,” Bucky mused. “You’re not… not as--”

“Evil? Maniacal? Power-drunk?”

Bucky laughed. “Yeah. All of those things.” He turned to look at Peter, his heart rabbiting in his chest at the way the kid stared at him, curious and unguarded. “What about you?” he croaked. “Where are you going?”

“Dunno,” Peter said, tearing his eyes away from Bucky. “Always wanted to go to school, but… That’s probably not realistic. Not for awhile, anyways.”

“You never know,” Bucky murmured, pushing down the fear of uncertainty rising up his chest. “You’re smart, Queens. You could figure something out.”

Peter gave him a tentative smile, nodding and burrowing into the blankets. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I’ll figure it out.”  
  


* * *

  
“Hey, Brooklyn.”

Bucky looked up from the potato he was scrubbing. Peter was leaned up against the steel worktable in the commune kitchen, grinning at him and holding up a peeler.

“What’re you doing here?” He didn’t see much of Peter around the farm during the daytime - while he and Sam were relegated to the kitchens or the garden, Peter was usually put to work in the infirmary or helping out with the weekly task scheduling.

Peter bumped his hip, grabbing the thoroughly scrubbed potato from his hand. “Got done with stuff. What, can't I just wanna see your pretty face?”

Bucky grinned, glad for the company. “You're a terrible liar, Parker.” He dumped another basket of potatoes into the sink, setting to work scrubbing that batch too. Looking around the kitchen to be sure everyone else was heads down on their own tasks, Bucky said in a low voice, “Everything set?”

“Yeah.” Peter smiled sincerely at him, managing to look completely charming while elbow-deep in potato peels. “Got you on the schedule as a delivery hand tomorrow, and Sam for later today. Once you’re in the rotation, the Guard will be more relaxed about letting you guys out on runs.”

Security had gotten considerably tighter after the first riot. Emrys formed a militia called the Community Guard and equipped them with rubber bullets and police grade batons, and of course every violent cult member with aggression issues had immediately signed up to enlist in the Guard.

Within a week of the Guard’s formation, six more teenagers were sent to the infirmary with severe concussions and there was no more whisper of escape attempts. At least, not outside of their cabin.

It felt like a slice of normalcy, sitting on Peter’s bed while the three of them talked through their plans and what they'd do afterwards - laughing and talking quietly amongst themselves, like they were normal kids instead of planning a secret escape from an isolated cult. Bucky didn't know what would become of their friendships once they got out. Sam had parents he wanted to return to, and Bucky had Rebecca. He thought about asking Peter to stick with him - at least until he figured something more permanent out. But whenever Bucky thought to mention it, his tongue sat heavy in his mouth and he couldn't quite summon the words. He'd wait until they actually managed to escape, he told himself. Get out of this hellhole first, then they'd figure out where to go.

Their plan moved forward into action. With Peter pulling the strings behind the work schedule, Bucky and Sam became regulars on the delivery rotation.

It was dull work mostly - perched in the back of a pickup truck with another farmhand, Bucky was responsible for hauling produce to the various farmers’ markets and isolated towns far flung from the rest of civilization. The buyers never looked at Bucky, didn’t even really like interacting with the drivers, it seemed. They’d fork over a wad of cash and take the bags of produce without so much as a ‘thank you’, all adhering to some unspoken rule not to engage with anyone from the compound more than was absolutely necessary.

On one occasion, the farmhand Bucky was working with - another kid who’d been discarded from the juvenile center - dared to ask a woman at the market to use her phone. She had looked nervously between the boy and the pickup driver, and made up some excuse about not having her phone on her. (Bucky didn’t miss the faint rectangular outline in her apron pocket.)

When they got back to the compound, the driver grabbed the kid and marched him in the direction of Emrys’ quarters, and when Bucky reported on what he’d seen, Peter confirmed grimly that he’d been asked to pull the kid’s name from any future delivery rotations.

Sam and Bucky kept their heads down, did as they were told while out on delivery, and they pretended to swallow Emrys' lies. It was all to get back to Rebecca, Bucky told himself firmly. It wasn't forever.  
  


* * *

  
Their opportunity finally came a week later. "Schedule's set," Peter said breathlessly, bursting into the cabin after the nightly sermon, his face pink from running across the compound. "You two are out on delivery with Joe tomorrow, but I'm gonna take care of him during breakfast."

Sam sprung up from his bunk in excitement and ran at Peter, hugging him and twirling him around in a celebratory circle. "Thank God!” He bellowed, and Peter batted at his shoulders, laughing even as he shushed him.

“We’re getting out,” Bucky said in amazement, sitting stunned at the edge of his bunk. “This time tomorrow, we’re gonna be out of here.”

Once Sam let him down, Peter crouched down on the cabin floor and pulled a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket. “Okay, it’s not the _prettiest_ ,” he said, flattening the sheet, “but this is a general map of where we oughta go tomorrow. The first market stop is here,” he pointed to a dot on the traced map. “And the closest town is fifty miles south of that, Clear Creek. All we gotta do is make it to Clear Creek, then they can’t touch us if we’re in someone else’s jurisdiction.”

“How do we know Clear Creek’s law enforcement won’t just turn us back over?” Sam asked, looking down at the sketch.

“We don’t,” Peter admitted, looking up at them. “So we try not to get caught and keep going if we can. Think of Clear Creek as our waypoint marker.”

“Sounds risky,” Bucky said, meeting Peter’s eyes. “Let’s try not to get caught then.”

Peter grinned. “That’s the plan.”

 

* * *

 

The following morning, Bucky was thrumming with nerves and anxiety. He made his way to the dining hall through a light misty rain, keeping his head down low and flicking his eyes from side-to-side, terrified that any moment, a Community Guard would pull him aside, their plan discovered.

The morning sermon went on without incident though - as he filed through the breakfast line, Peter gave him a little smile before slopping some oatmeal on his tray, but that was the only acknowledgment they made to one another.

Rain was still falling light and dewey across the compound, shallow mud puddles squelching underneath his boots as he made his way to the car port. He caught sight of Sam already hauling burlap sacks of carrots, sweet potatoes and onions into the bed of a dirty white pick-up and began helping out, neither daring to speak to the other just yet.

Peter ducked out of the car port a moment later, shielding his face from the rain. “You boys ready?”

Bucky bit back a nervous laugh and nodded. Sam jumped up into the bed of the truck and perched himself among the burlap sacks of produce, extending a hand down to help Bucky up as well. Catching his eye, Sam gave him an anxious grin and squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Let’s go,” he called, knocking the top of the cab.

Peter got up into the truck cab and turned the ignition over, looking up into the rearview mirror. His eyes locked with Bucky's in the mirror, and then they drove off.

Mud splattered thick and viscous all around them as Peter drove through the compound, caking the wheels and leaving deep wet tracks in the earth behind them. The rain drizzled on, flattening Bucky's hair against his face and he had to squint to see more than a few feet in front of the truck, so his fingers tightened around the edge of the truck bed when he felt them rolling to a stuttered stop.

"Hold up," called a voice, and Bucky felt his stomach plummet as a Community Guard strolled up to the cab, rapping his rubber baton against the hood.

Peter leaned across and cranked the window down, smiling at the guard. "Hey!" he greeted him cheerfully, fingers wrapped tense around the steering wheel.

"I didn't think _you_ were cleared for driving," the guard said in a gruff voice, squinting back to where Bucky and Sam sat in the pickup bed.

"Yeah, just got trained," Peter said.

"Is that so?" The guard's eyes lingered on Bucky, then on Sam, taking in their stiff posture and nervous silence.

"We got a couple deliveries to make, can we go?" Peter asked, an edge of impatience creeping into his voice.

"Hold on." Bucky watched with mounting dread as the guard's hand strayed down to the gun at his belt, a clear threat. "I don't want you driving out in this weather if you're new at this. I'm gonna check the schedule, see if someone can switch shifts."

Sam and Bucky exchanged a panicked look. "We already asked," Sam shouted quickly. "Clint was gonna, but he said he wasn't feelin' too good. Something about stomach cramps.” When the guard gave him another dubious look, Sam said, “Look, we're already gonna run late with the rain, but if we slow down anymore, half these people won't even buy this stuff. You know how they hardly trust us," he added ruefully, with a commiserating shake of his head.

The guard gave an annoyed sigh, but his hand lowered from the gun at his belt. “I still don’t like you driving out in the rain,” he scowled. “Let me drive ‘em, your dad’ll kill me if I let you get into a wreck.”

For a hair of a second, Bucky saw Peter’s eyes flick up to the rearview mirror again and meet his, terror communicated between them wordlessly. “ _Please_ Rollins, c'mon," he pleaded, pasting on a charming smile. "If I never drive in these conditions, how'm I supposed to learn?" When the guard's forehead furrowed in doubt again, Peter leaned forward, throwing out their last hail Mary. "Come along for the ride. Just let me practice," he wheedled.

Rollins chewed at his lower lip thoughtfully, then sighed, his shoulders slumped in defeat. It worked. "Yeah, okay," he relented. "Budge over."

Peter gave him a winning grin and threw the car door open, letting him in.

The door slammed shut behind them and Rollins cranked the window back up, leaving Bucky and Sam to stare at one another in quiet dismay as the rain fell around them.

Slowly, the pickup drove on away from the compound, the fields and shacks of the isolated community fading into the gray afternoon mist as they went on with their escape, complications and all.

"What are we gonna do?" Sam murmured in a low voice, his fingers clenched tense around his knees.

"We gotta get rid of him along the way. Maybe… Maybe make some emergency, so he has to get out of the cab." Bucky dug around the truck bed, looking for some kind of tool. "Fuck, should've brought a shovel or something," he mourned.

"We could use a big carrot," Sam said drily.

"Come on, Sam," Bucky said fretfully, but as he looked around the truck, wielding produce seemed more and more like their only option. "Fuck," he said again.

All too quickly, they made it into their first stop, a small market far flung from the compound and still well beyond any incorporated town to speak of.

Sam and Bucky got to work hauling bags of produce off the truck, unable to speak with Peter with the guard sitting idly in the truck cab. It was as Bucky was summing up the price that he saw Sam fiddling with one of the vendors' wooden stalls. Sam was leaned casually against the post like he was just sheltering himself from the rain, but Bucky caught his fingers twisting something under the wooden slats of the stall.

His heart pounding in his chest, Bucky stuttered over the numbers, losing count. "Shit, sorry," he mumbled, scrubbing his face and smiling apologetically at the vendor. "Never was good at numbers."

The vendor made a derisive sound under her breath but just tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for Bucky to count again.

He summed the prices up, watching Sam out of the corner of his eye. Sam tucked his hands into his pockets and headed back to the truck, stooping to retie his boots. Only when he had hopped back up into the truck bed did Bucky give her the total, holding back his sigh of relief.

The vendor scanned over the numbers doubtfully, but finding no flaw, sneered and handed over the cash.

Bucky smiled and thanked her, and jogged back to the truck, joining Sam among the sacks of produce.

“What took you so long?” Rollins asked in an annoyed growl, jerking the passenger side door open just enough to take the wad of cash out of Bucky’s hand.

“Bad at math,” Bucky shrugged.

“Fucking delinquents,” Rollins muttered scathingly, slamming the door again as the truck rumbled on.

“Thanks, man,” Sam said quietly.

As Peter drove them on, Bucky tilted his head to the side, hearing an odd metallic clanking like something was rattling underneath the truck. “What did you do?” he asked.

Sam grinned, uncurling his fingers and showing Bucky a long, rusted screw. “Messed with the exhaust pipe,” he murmured. “Mostly harmless, but it’ll sound like something bad is fucked up - _hopefully_ fucked up enough that Rollins gets out to check.”

Bucky grinned at him.

Sure enough, Rollins started shifting in the cab, looking around in annoyance and at points, leaning over the dash to check what he could see.

Not wanting them to get too close to the second stop, Bucky rapped on the back window of the cab. “Hey!” he called, and the truck rolled to a slow stop, tires squelching in the mud.

The rain was falling harder now, a consistent downpour that soaked Bucky and Sam to their bones, although the adrenaline pumping through him kept the cold at bay. Rollins reluctantly opened the cab door and got out, hunching himself under his jacket. “You guys hear that rattling too?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, wiping the rain from his face. “It sounded like it’s comin’ from underneath the truck, I think.”

Rollins scoffed, looking disgruntled as he circled the vehicle. “Yeah, that’s where all the car parts are, genius. ‘Course it’s coming from underneath the truck.”

“I know something about cars,” Bucky volunteered, hopping out of the bed. Rollins raised an eyebrow but stepped back to make room for him. “Probably something with the, uh, serpentine belt,” he fished, wincing when Sam gave him an unimpressed look. Thankfully, Rollins didn’t call him on his bluff.

Feeling a little emboldened, Bucky crouched by the side of the truck, his eyes flicking up to where Peter was sitting in the cab, brown eyes blinking curiously at him. “Here, I’m gonna try tightening the muffler valve. Can you get close to the exhaust pipe -- yeah, just kinda next to it, and can you tell me if you hear something hissing?”

Rollins grimaced, clearly not relishing the thought of taking orders from the new kid, but he went to the back of the truck, stooping just a bit.

Bucky seized his opportunity. Jumping up to his feet, he kicked at the wet earth, spraying thick mud into Rollins’ face and making him roar.

Sam hefted up a sack of carrots and flung it at Rollins, knocking the man off balance and flat into the mud. “Go, go, go!” he roared, just as Bucky grabbed onto the passenger side door, barely hauling himself into the cab in time as Peter slammed on the gas pedal.

“Fuck!” Peter cried, but he was laughing hysterically as they peeled away, tires spitting up mud in their wake.

“ _Tighten the muffler valve_!” he could hear Sam howling, his own laughter bubbling out of his throat in amazement.

As he watched Rollins stumble to his feet in the rear mirrors, he swore as he realized Rollins was pulling his gun from his holster. A loud crack rent the air and Bucky ducked his head instinctively. “He’s fucking shooting at us,” he shouted indignantly.

“Don’t worry,” Peter called back, “they’re rubber bullets! Shit, I dunno where we’re going, can you get my map--”

Another crack sounded, this one louder than the last. Bucky’s ears were ringing, and he realized with almost slow-motion comprehension that glass was sprayed all across the truck cab, shards of it discarded across the peeled leather seats.

He hauled himself upright, staring as Peter’s eyes found his, wide and frightened. “You’re okay,” he said instinctively, wanting to comfort the other boy, and then the truck veered to the side, too fast for country roads and Peter slumped bonelessly into his lap.

Bucky’s hands went to cradle his head, adrenaline dragging time to a crawl. “Hey,” he started, his fingers slick and wet in Peter’s hair. He didn’t understand - Peter hadn’t gone in the rain, why was he wet - and as he pulled his fingers away, he stared uncomprehendingly at the thick red rivulets running down his palm.

“ _Bucky_!” Sam roared behind him. “ _Drive_!”

“Oh god,” he heard himself say, and when another crack sounded through the air, Bucky snapped back to himself. He cradled Peter’s head as best as he could and slid into the driver’s seat, his body twisted awkwardly as he rammed down on the gas pedal while trying to keep Peter in his lap.

Another two gunshots rang out, one embedding itself in the metal of the truck, but Sam kept screaming, “ _Drive, don’t stop driving_!” so he curled his arms tighter around Peter’s fragile body and kept on the gas, numb and trembling until his vision was blurred with the pouring rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [tumblr](https://peterparkers7evilexes.tumblr.com/).


End file.
